"Campin' out here?" says I.
"I'm not supposed to," says he; "but the yard superintendent lets me. This is where I've lived and worked for nearly two years, and until you came a minute ago it was where I expected to end. But now it's different."
"It is?" says I. "How's that?"
Which is Tink Tuttle's cue to open up on the story of his life. It's a soggy, unexcitin' yarn, most of it. As I'd kind of guessed by the way he talked, he wa'n't just an ordinary fact'ry hand. He'd been through some high class scientific school up in Massachusetts, where he'd lived before his father lost his grip. Seems the old man was a crackerjack boss machinist; but he got to monkeyin' with fool inventions, drifted from place to place, got to be a lunger, and finally passed in. The last four years in the fact'ry here had finished him. Tink had worked there, too, and his sister had married one of the hands.
"It's the graveyard of the Tuttle family, this place is, I suppose," says Tink. "It got father, and it has almost got me. Some folks can breathe brass filings and carbon dioxid and thrive on it; but we can't. So I gave up and hid myself away in here to work out one of my silly dreams. Last spring I caught a bad cold, and Sister sent me West. There we have an uncle. She thought the change of climate might help my cough. It didn't do a bit of good; but it was out there that I picked up this option. That was when I saw a chance of making my dream come true. You saw what I've been building, didn't you, as we came through?"
"I didn't notice," says I. "What is it, anyway?"
"TUT, TUT," SAYS THE BOSS OF THE RESTORIUM.
"Wait until I light the lantern," says Tuttle. "Now come. This way. Don't hit your head on those wings. There!"